Filing Our Income Tax Returns

Posted by Mrs Money on March 28th, 2008

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I admit it, I’m being a slacker. I still haven’t finished my taxes. And the April 15th deadline is quickly approaching. I guess I’ve been putting it off because I’m afraid we are going to have to pay, and that thought kills me. I really don’t want to have to pay.

I did start our taxes last night with Turbo Tax, and so far it is showing we owe over $800. I still haven’t put everything in, so I’m hoping that once we are finally complete that we will at least break even. Last year some of the big things we did were: bought our house, paid off some student loans, and donated items to Goodwill. I figured with paying over $7,000 in interest on our mortgage alone that we would get some of that back. I hope we still do.

When inputting the information into Turbo Tax, I realized how much money we spent last year and it almost makes me sick. $7,000+ on mortgage interest, $3700+ on student loan interest, and who knows how much to the Home Depot for home improvement items. The $7,000 on the mortgage interest makes me think: did we really make the right decision on buying a home? Sometimes it makes me wonder. Of course, if you figure it out, that is roughly $600 in interest on our mortgage each month, and our rent on previous apartment was around $700. Factor in home repairs, though, and I think the rent looks even better.

What really peeves me is the fact that we spent $3700+ on student loan interest and were unable to write all of the interest off. We were only allowed to write $2500 of the interest off. What a bummer. Of course, next year we won’t have that much to write off because we’ve consolidated the loans to a much lower interest rate that I don’t mind paying. The fact of the matter is, we paid $3700 and only could write off $2500. It’s irritating.

Hopefully after I add in the car registration fees and some other items we won’t owe as much if anything. I’d love to be one of the lucky ones that receives a refund. I think part of the reason we’re in this predicament is that my husband is not having enough taxes deducted from his paycheck. I’m not completely sure what he claims, but I’m going to use this IRS withholding Calculator to figure out what each of us should claim on our W-4. I’m going to be optimistic that this year will be much better for us financially, and I’ll be crossing my fingers that we’ll be getting a refund next year!

Yakezie!

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